The Information Society in Bulgaria Information Society and Globalisation: Advanced Theoretical Debates
Lucy Setian – December 2011
In the following publication I’ll try to examine the developments of the Bulgarian society in the years around the country’s accession in the EU, and the last years 2010‐2011. I’ll interpret various indexes for the Information Society theme, provided by the statistical office of the EU – Eurostat and others, and compare them with my personal observations. The fact that the EC services have selected around 60 indicators illustrates that the term Information Society no matter for Bulgaria only, Europe or in general has various dimensions and different definitions. In order to improve the understanding about the specifics of the current state of being or not being in the definition of information society, I’ll explore few of them. However, it is important to be noticed that not always the statistical indexes could measure the reality. Hence, I’ll critically reflect over their various dimensions showing the interrelations and differences by the various perspectives similarly to approach, undertaken by Webster within the framework of vision of the Castells’ network society. The individuals building the introduced percentage rates are aged 16 to 74 if not stated otherwise. Overall usage of Internet In 2010‐2011 can be noticed a significant growth and positive change in the perception of WWW from the mass Bulgarian user, and finally in the search and usage of web‐based services. The Bulgarian slowly begins to find a special place for the Internet in his life, both as a communication medium, learning and entertainment environment and tool, service provider, information and knowledge library and more. Among the important factors about that are the constant decrease in the hardware prices; the gradual improvement of the telecommunications; the enrichment of services available online (the penetration of the e‐commerce, the integration of mobile and internet communication services and technologies, the increasingly growing information volume, which you can reach over the WWW); the gradually growing cultural interest towards the new media; the turning of luxury into a necessity for more people, the creation of new type of occupations and etc. Just as an example, if in 1999 there has been 10‐15 Bulgarian entertainment websites, today there are tens of them and the number keeps growing every day. The web has transformed also culturally the human perception about info acquiring and assimilation in cohesion with the theories of speed and immediacy. According to a research paper from the Meta‐Forum in 2011 the most popular web sites in Bulgarian language are news portals (24chasa.bg, dnevnik.bg, gbg.bg news.bg, vesti.bg etc.). The Bulgarian Wikipedia as an important source for natural language processing contains app. 117.000 articles, which number of articles places it in the 34th position among 270 Wikipedia’s in other languages! This proves that culture in the globalized network society crosses borders much faster than any other transport medium and can play immense role on various aspects of today’s life.
To examine the reasons for the current state of the information society under the influence of the technological changes and novelties in Bulgaria, as a start I’d like to make a retrospection focusing on the development brought by the appearance of Internet and the surrounding it ICT. In the beginning the only available technology in the country allowing you to connect with the global network was the fax modem. Unlike in Europe, where this was offered mailnly by the telecoms, in Bulgaria this was happening mainly thanks to small private firms, oriented in selling and delivery of computers. Initially they were buying on wholesale a certain volume from the state monopoly Bulgarian Telecommunications company (BTC) and then selling prepaid cards for access on a respective price per minute/hour and etc. Since their number became large, gradually territories got merged, purchased and distributed among players. Until then the local suppliers were bound at 100% with the monopolist BTC. This interdependency demonstrates the connection between private sector and state companies according to the network society theories of Manuel Castells even in the first stages of the creation of the new type of society in Bulgaria. With these mergers the small suppliers slowly saw the opportunity to realize their own local networks in which to plug in their subscribers: by connecting them with an optic cable DIRECTLY to provider’s network and than through again with fast optic cable connect their servers to BTC instead of connecting them to the slow BTC telephone lines. At this second stage BTC was still sold, and these small regional suppliers started to use the lack of a real competition in the face of the cumbersome BTC: even in a small city as Pazardzik (population under 20 000 people) there were 4‐5 suppliers, and in Sofia tens more. The newborn mobile operators themselves have not allocated resources for the provision of such a service. This led to a fierce competition for the acquirement of even greater areas in the cities, while the delivery of the signal from the servers of the provider to the end user had to go through several distribution substations and through bundles of cables hanging on trees and light poles. In the period 20032006, BTC, already sold and renamed after the mobile operator VIVATEL, also began its entrance into this business. While BTC had the advantage of the ownership of practically the whole fixed network, it started to apply the European model – ADSL. The corporation managed to seize many state structures and small firms, which were already subcribers for ther fixed telephone line too. However, practically, the prime mass – the individual users – stayed subsribers to the local suppliers. The innovation was not enough to bring a mindset change among people, who arleady were happy with the existing services. In the meantime appeared the company ORBITEL, which also began to wholesale volume to the local suppliers and placed BTC in a competitve environment. A 3rd supplier also joined the market – directly from USA, using a satellite connection. Thanks to it the remote users were able to download from the satellite and to upload through their telephone connection or their regional supplier. But that didn’t succeed widely because the 3rd stage begun, when the three mobile operators, operated on the territory of Bulgaria, also intervened in the business and started to offer Internet. They achieved that by just acquiring few if the biggest regional providers, through which they got their initial suppliers’ mass. At the same time a law has been passed, requiring from that moment on each cable delivery to happen only via an underground cable! This forced all market players to comply with BTC, which together with the municipalities ruled the trunks, on which the cables for fixed phones have been placed. However, watching the EU data, in 2006 71% of the
Bulgarians have never used Internet…at the same time the EU27 average was only 42%. In opposition the stats for regular web usage show that almost all of the rest of the Bulgarians (22%) used at least once per week or almost every day the web, while the average EU percentage was double – 45%. This proves that although the quality of the ICT innovation was very much up to date, a lot of society circles in Bulgaria didn’t actually have a reach to it. The main reason for that was that most of the population having an access to these offers was in the bigger cities. And the industry and entrepreneurs chose them, initially because the fixed telephone network infrastructure was better established there and in the longrun of ICT innovation – because it was economically more advantageous to be developed there. The geo‐economic dimensions of the country are important: in the past ten years it is visible a strong trend of people moving from medium and small‐sized cities to the big ones, in search for better labor opportunities and living conditions. So, most of the innovative services and products were economically sustainable if they were introduced on large scale in the most populated regions, where the initial costs would be covered faster if the ICT would have proven successful. Next to that, one can imagine that only a part of the society could see the potential and respectively adopt a new emerging innovation before being sure of its reason to use it. At that time only few people saw its value within the context of their active day‐to‐day usage. However, with the improving ratio between price and quality of the service, the Internet expansion became visibly growing. A reason for that was that this period of development was determined by the lack of monopoly telecoms in Bulgaria. Many different types of providers were struggling to get subscribers by constantly increasing the exchange speed and cutting down the prices just to retain market. Thus, unlike in Europe, where the cheapest Internet delivery was by telecoms as ADSL service over existing fixed telephone lines, in Bulgaria the Internet supply over cable developed very quickly. Through the switching in local area networks at speeds of minimum 30 ‐ 45 MBit, this allowed at least 2‐3 times faster connection than of ADSL (download <20 MBit, upload‐max 2 Mbit). Today there is also good wireless connections, some of which for free in parks, restaurants, bars, coffee shops, airports, railway and bus stations. MAX TELECOM is another supplier of Wi‐Fi which is not connected with the telecoms and doesn’t use the GSM networks, but the so‐called cookies. They deliver Internet via 4G network and cover the whole territory of the country. The overall Internet speeds’ range in Bulgaria is between 35 ‐150 MBit, and the price is around 10 €/month for unlimited traffic on STATIC IP address of the subscriber. Despite all, these prices are high for a country, where the average salary is around 200‐ 250 EUR. According to the 2011 stats still almost the half (46%) of the Bulgarian population has never used the Internet! In opposition to that, 46% of the remaining 54% of these uses the web not just every once in a while every two months, but almost every day turning the web in a commodity within the context of their life. Just for a comparison 76% of the average EU27 population has used the web at least once in their life in regards of this year’s stats, while the majority of 68% of them is online almost every day. Still the percentage values keep their positive motion in terms of growth in the Internet usage both for Bulgarians since their admission in the EU and for the EU27 average value. However, it is quite shocking that still one half of the population in the new member country hasn’t been online at all while the other half has been regularly active on the web.
Trying to answer one of the major questions in the technical definition of Webster, it appears that not the large amount of ICT is the necessary requirement to qualify one society as an information society. It is most importantly the context of usage of the ICT from individuals and organizations, and the overall standard of the country, which even if having the technical aspiration for innovation sometimes could be brought to a halt due to internal collisions between the stakeholder groups (state, academics, corporations, social organization). Yet again, that is a prove that we live in a networked society of interests and interdependencies, where willingly or not you are part of the wave of changes and the only difference which weak links can make is to become conscious for their own functional role in the big architecture. Usage by men and women In 2006 70% of the Bulgarian men have never used Internet, while just 23% of the rest were regularly on the web. In the mean time the average for EU men seemed much better with its 39% of non‐adopters putting Bulgaria in the list of rather underdeveloped countries in terms of ICT expansion. Similar in proportion was the average of the rest of the EU men in 2005‐2006 – almost the half of them (49%) was already online on a regular basis. The last years’ data show that exactly the half of the Bulgarian men has never been online, while on EU average every 4th European man hasn’t used Internet. The other half of Bulgarians, strangely, 47% in 2011, is build up from regular male web users. Today 70% of the EU27 men are actively surfing on the web almost every day, which places Bulgaria in the highly belated adopters of the Internet and the surrounding it ICT. Similarly, in 2006, 72% of Bulgarian women have never been on the web, while just 21% of the rest was on a regular basis online. Looking at the EU statistics, the average of EU27 women that have been on the net at least once in their life was around the half of the female EU population (54%). Only 38% of them, however, used Internet regularly. In 2010 the half of the Bulgarian women (52%) haven’t been online at all, while the average for EUR27 doesn’t have much better level ‐ 29%. The percentage of regular web female users in Bulgaria didn’t evolve a lot historically and in terms of its current development ‐ 45% in 2011. The difference is much more visible when you compare the Bulgarian rates to the average for the EU, where today 65% of the average of the EU27 female population uses Internet regularly. The trends, following the expansion of regular Internet usage among the sexes, prove that although Bulgaria still lags behind statistically, the information society has a balanced usage between sexes. This allows us to think over the coming opportunities in terms of occupations and professional development in a virtual environment and ICT skills, giving equal treatment and chances to both men and women. However, one might ask, how it is possible that Bulgaria is still so much behind the other European countries. Actually more important is not why Bulgarians are still behind but who were the drivers of growth! The conclusion is obvious. Although half of the population, both for the concrete statistics according to the sex, doesn’t even use the web, the other half is so much more hyperactive (using it almost every day!) that it is actually responsible for the big increase of the Internet penetration among the society during these years. Exactly
because there were Bulgarians living in conditions allowing them to become early adopters, today we have an operational although still not fully developed information or rather network society. This brings us to the other question, how it is possible to exist in the first place this huge gap between people who have never used the Internet and the once who do it almost every day? The fact is that even in 2011 only 45% of the Bulgarian households have Internet ‐ almost twice less than the average for Europe. Obviously there is no “middle‐class” of Internet users no matter of the various social constructs. This big differentiation must lead mostly root in two main causes, mainly in terms of the Bulgarian technological paradigm ‐ the availability and the access to technological infrastructures, products and services. And although I said mainly, in my continuous analytics of indexes you’d see that the information about the information could turn it to knowledge – or in another words, that educational and governmental inclusion in the definition of an information society are crucial. That’s why we tend to call our society the one of information, although the more correct would be network since it is fully interdependent of the organization of stakeholders, processes and the connections between them. We recognize that technology – both infrastructure and products ‐ is still not everywhere, which makes the adoption by the society long and misbalanced process. But adoption doesn’t necessarily imply for approval of the current various ICT in Bulgaria by the consumers, especially in terms of who owns, maintains and operates these. If only one half of the population becomes information society ambassadors, it is still early to talk about overall acknowledgment and acceptance. Exactly because of the already existing difference between users and non‐users, and the fact that there is an extreme contextual difference also internally in the network of users, we can’t expect a fast, context‐free, and independent from educational, professional, cultural divergences affirmation process. Hence, it would be complex to foster a quick development of both technological innovations and the understandings around this new type of societal organization, which in itself might be still not mature enough to do so. It is not just the fact that you have an innovation, which is being or not being used at all. It doesn’t matter also how long the Bulgarian information society has been forming, the sex of the different users, or if someone has been almost every day online or not at all. The major issue is not about who is a member of the information society in Bulgaria, but is about what is the context in which someone is a member, shaping the trends and developments both in terms of technology, economics, culture and others. Why you are participating or not participating, being a person, a group of people or an organization, why you want to be part of a network society. Even if he or she doesn’t want, a citizen is already a part of a network society and his existence in it can change through active and passive participation the way the society as a whole de/upgrades. It is very important to recognize the examples of context within which information and knowledge in the realities of various human perceptions dominate the different realms of the Bulgarian society – professional, educational, cultural and etc. This would help us to better understand the current level of development of the information society in Bulgaria, which is an integral part of the European and global network and its processes and hence, a definite part of it.
Spatial perspectives Taking the spatial perspectives we can discover 3 different groups of individuals who are either regular Internet users or who have never been online: living in sparsely populated area (less than 100 inhabitants/Km²); intermediate urbanized area (100 499 inhabitants/Km²) and densely populated area (at least 500 inhabitants/Km²). In 2006, a little more than the half (55%) of the Bulgarians living in big cities have never used the web. Additionally, only 35% of the remaining represents the regular users group. EU‐wise the situation looked a bit better – at that time 37% of the major cities population was not yet on the web. 51% out of the remaining 63% of the EU27 citizens were regularly online. Few years later, the figure for Bulgaria didn’t change a lot – in 2010 it went down to 37% ‐ same as the amount of non‐ internet users on average in Europe four years ago. 56% from the remaining 63% Bulgarians is almost every day online. Today 22% of the EU27 citizens on average haven’t used at all Internet, while 71% of the remaining Europeans surf regularly. At least in the period 2005 ‐ 2010 the percentage of the Bulgarians and the average of the EU27 citizens living in metropolis cities using Internet regularly have proportionally grown. However, there is still a visible difference in the amount of regular web users between Bulgaria and the other EU countries. Following the notion that major cities are drivers of economy we must think how normal it is that a number of Bulgarians is still excluded from the network society. If in big cities big or substantial part of the occupational activities are based on the most relevant force – the ICT, isn’t it a bit dubious that these white‐collars aren’t also informational workers and hence they presume to have a regular usage of ICT? In result we can estimate that the major cities in Bulgaria are still with not sufficiently realized potential for economic development in terms of information/knowledge usage skills and education. However the question remains, what is the reason – the lack of infrastructure, of trust in this new innovations, of expertise, the too cautious entrepreneurship spirit of upcoming businesses or else? Even more unexpected is the 2006 figure of 74% of Bulgarians from middlesized cities, who have never been online, while the EU‐wide average percent was 33% lower. 4 years later half of these Bulgarian citizens’ group still hasn’t been online compared to the 25% of non‐internet users on average in the EU. 41% of these Bulgarians are below the EU27 average of 66% regular Internet users. Although the general regular Internet usage in smaller cities tends to be less with around 10% in comparison of capital regions, we can observe a common positive growth trend of usage from 2005 onwards. Today 65% of the population in Bulgarian small towns and villages has never used Internet. Only 29% out of 35% individuals, which live there, goes online regularly. While the EU27 average amounts for 36% of non‐users, more than the half (55%) of the people living in small cities is online at least once weekly. This places Bulgaria again on the second place in Europe in terms not only of regular usage but also of Internet usage at all in these areas. However, there is a very slow but observable positive rise since the year after the Bulgarian EU
accession, when a total of 84% of the Bulgarians living in such areas haven’t used Internet. This trend is really worrying and representative for the need to take measures to provide equal opportunities for all stakeholders in the information society in Bulgaria. Educational perspectives Taking the educational perspectives we can discover the following 3 different groups of individuals with no or low, medium and high formal education. Today the very impressive 82% of the highly educated Bulgarians uses regularly the web, which is with 29% more than in 2006. However, in 2010 Bulgaria held the embarrassing third place in Europe in number of highly educated individuals, who have never been online. In comparison the 2011 EU average for regular use is 10% higher than the Bulgarian one, the growth of that figure has been less in regards of the 2006 values. This proves the positive acceptance and interest in the various ICTs on among the high‐educated Bulgarian group but still doesn’t explain the gap between users and non‐users. 48% of the Bulgarian citizens with medium formal education use regularly Internet in 2011, while the other half has never been online! This was almost the same percentage (47%) of regular EU27 Internet users in year 2005, which in year 2011 – reached 71%. However, although much more ICT‐accepting, in 2010, almost every 4th medium educated EU citizen hasn’t been online at all. The Bulgarians with medium education are still a weak point of the information society in the country, which in its total shows a positive development. Today the figure is more than twice the one of 2006 (18%) and it is much faster growing than the EU average number for the same period. When I compare Bulgaria with the EU27 average in the period 2006‐2011 the least growth was in the number of active users with no or low formal education. While the EU average had a positive growth of 30% in these years, the boost in Bulgaria was only 7%. There was almost no change in the amount of new Internet users with low or no education: in 2010 82% of these Bulgarians have never used Internet! And although this percentage seems shocking, also every second European with low or no education hasn’t been online even once according to the last years’ figures. Measuring the two current levels of regular users we have a huge gap too between the 17% of low educated Bulgarians in respect of the EU27 average of 45% (2011). To sum up we can see the correlations between the education and the adoption of new technological tools and environments as Internet and the rest of the ICTs, determining also future occupational prospects. In the Bulgarian academic reality hasn’t been much of a development in terms of introducing innovation in primary schools. Hence people don’t have the opportunity to have a first grasp of knowledge about it. For those who didn’t have the fortune to further go to middle and/or high educational institutions and learn about ICT this is the end, as additional to the already presented statistics show. Obviously in Bulgaria there is no adequate knowledge introduction to innovation being transferred to the masses through both primary education institutions and media – the 2 strongest mediators and starting points of change and early
adoption. There is also a visible lack of support from the government in creating opportunities for gaining this knowledge and creating this adoption among the groups with no or low education both in terms of popularization of free resources to learn and of sources and resources – human and material – to advance the experience about what ICT is and what could it bring. Looking deeper in the data about Bulgarian adults with only medium formal education, we conclude almost the same with a small addition. All of these citizens went to school somewhere, no matter if in a big, small or medium sized city. The common was that the government didn’t foster the creation of a unified set of values and tools around this new topic to be introduced in schools. In result, these values and tools were different and there wasn’t an equal transfer of knowledge, way of teaching in the different schools across the country. While some might be more advantaged to live and experience it, other didn’t have this change at all due to a lack of right mediation tools, ways of exploring what ICT can bring and learn how to use it with its advantages and disadvantages. And while some scholars understood its worth and later managed to at least use it – we don’t even speak if they use it properly or within a right context but just use it, others didn’t even have the chance to try. This is an evidence for the lack of reach of these new ICT opportunities among certain social classes in the new member state, which although being under development still doesn’t progress in a wider reach. Bulgarian workers’ class didn’t manage to reach out to the new economic opportunities after the period of EU accession, which seems to be the case for almost half of the EU citizens. Employment perspectives Taking the employment perspectives we can compare the regular Internet usage of employed and unemployed individuals. In 2006, more than the half (62%) of the working Bulgarians has never used the Internet. In opposition, the EU27 amount of non‐adopters was two times less. Only 29% of the 38% employed Bulgarians used Internet regularly, while the EU27 average percentage was almost double – 56%. During the following years, there was an increase in the percentage of employed Bulgarians, larger than the one of the EU27 average. In 2010 Bulgaria is on 5th highest place among the European countries, which have working people who have never been once online. In 2011 we see a positive growth both in the amount of adopters and regular users in Bulgaria, which represents 63% of the working population, going online almost every day. The EU27 average value is still higher, but not unreachable in within the coming years. More shocking is the figure of only 5% of the unemployed Bulgarians in 2004, using regularly the web in comparison to the EU27 average of 27%. That leads us to the question how the society members have been facing their employment crises in Europe prior the acceptance of Bulgaria in the EU? It seems that either thanks to the innovation enhancements and support coming from the EU through a better expansion of ICT in Bulgaria or by creating a better understanding about it, Bulgarians started to use Internet much more. Today 31% of the unemployed in Bulgaria in comparison of the double more on the EU27 average of unemployed are
active at least once per week on Internet. In 2010 still 66% of the unemployed Bulgarians have not even been online! It appears that just one very aware group of Bulgarians look at the ICT as a tool to seek new professional opportunities. Maybe only part of that 31% of the population has a relevant knowledge on what to do on the web and with the other ICT tools in order to use them for his self‐education and better presentation in front of future employers. A relevant indicator for that would be the percentage of ICT occupations. Strangely enough, the most recent EU data about the percentage of the ICT personnel on total employment are from 2007, when the Bulgarian ICT sector was employing about 4% from the total employed personnel. Therefore we can’t really estimate the current influence of it over the economy and the social spheres. However, looking at the other sectors’ stats from the last year show that although the majority of occupations include work with ICT products, still there is are just few domains where that involve the active usage of Internet.
Individuals using the Internet for interaction with public authorities Back at 2008 only every 10th Bulgarian was using Internet for communication with public authorities on a EU27 average of 36%. Today every 4th does that in Bulgaria although in 2010 the availability of eGovernment services was 67% for citizens and 75% for businesses. It is evident that more Bulgarians start to trust Internet as a medium and ICT as the tools to interact with the public sector within time. However, the biggest problem here is the large number of outdated technical infrastructure and software used by the public authorities in the country. These products make the communication slower and more complex, unfriendly and hard to comprehend (especially when the households using e.g. computers have more up‐to date technologies). Thus they become the cause for eGovernment services to be labeled as a lacking credibility. Bulgarian public authorities usually lag behind with years when it comes to both organizational (change management) and technological innovation. Therefore, even though there is twice more availability of services than users, the interest remains below the average for the European (41% interaction for EU27).
Usage by elderly people A very important group for the identification of a society as an information society is the one of elderly people between 65 to 74 years old. This target group went through a lot of progressive developments on EU27 level but unfortunately shows completely inadequate positive development in Bulgaria since 2005. Nowadays every 4th elderly EU citizen on average uses regularly the Internet, while in Bulgaria only 3% of the elderly population does that. 95% of the elderly Bulgarians have actually never been online according to the 2010 stats. This static stationing poses the question about the actual positive social impact of innovations and their practical reach to less or disadvantaged circles, which really need them. Is it enough for Bulgarians to have wide‐usage among the younger generations and the highly educated working groups in order to be identified as part of the global informational society? Isn’t it the lack of proper context in the usage of Internet of Bulgaria a worrying factor for the positive development of the network society? Probably when we become part of that target group the perspective would become different, but just as Castells predicts, some part of the network can still be there, but excluded. Bulgaria is on the second worse place in Europe when it comes to a regular usage of Internet and on the third worse place when it comes to a usage at all by elderly people. This indicates a huge misunderstanding about the context of usage within which Bulgarians apply their ICT skills or at all knowledge about ICT. If the goals of the information society are to support human life in its further progress and to improve the quality of life giving equal opportunities to all, then for sure that is not the case for Bulgaria and as the perspective shows, this won’t change soon. Enterprises having purchased and received orders on‐line In 2004 only 4% of the Bulgarian enterprises have made an on‐line purchase in comparison to the average of 26% of the EU27 enterprises. The last years’ statistics for Bulgaria show no changes, while the EU27 average had a little rise (after going up and going down again) up to the 27%. Back in 2004, only 3% of all Bulgarian enterprises have received orders online. In the first years after the country’s accession in the EU, the situation worsened. Today the percentage is the same as back in 2004. However, I’d forecast a slow, but certain positive development for the Bulgarian companies, which try to develop their e‐commerce practices. The average percentage of EU enterprises, having received orders online in 2004 is the same as the one today: 13%. The reasons are different and they prove my prognosis. Closer look in the years after the accession of new member states in the EU, allows one to notice that the economically strong countries had a positive growth in the receipt of online orders. Basically, they used the political moment, when new markets opened and the new members wanted to reach the Western‐ European goods. Western‐European goods rather became the tread to weaker economies of new members states, curious for novelty, instead of the opposite. The expansion of these goods was the reason for the positive growth in the first years, but in the course of stabilization, the new member states also started developing good export trade policies via the Internet networks.
As stated before, Bulgarian enterprises working on the web will undergo a very slow and unstable progress in terms of trust building on both national and foreign markets. Additionally, one must ask about the difference between the overall picture of purchases enterprises made and the ones they received for the 7 years between 2003‐2010. It is evident, that there is a gap between the figures of the average EU27 level and these of Bulgaria: a bigger number of EU27 average and Bulgarian enterprises made purchases than received. Consequently, that has two meanings. In compliance of my analysis before, the stats show that Bulgarian companies had more interest in purchasing online from other EUcountries during the first years after the country’s EU accession. On the opposite, from the very beginning of their e‐trade operations the average of the EU27 enterprises trusted more the web transactions of the more competitive EUexternal markets such as US, India, China and etc. So, they chose to reach them instead. EU‐ wide the share of enterprises' turnover on e‐commerce is still very low. One reason for that is the lack of trust in the delivery of goods between countries, the long waiting times and the additional taxes. That proves once again that the Bulgarian information society is an interdependent part of the big European and global network. Back at 2004, Bulgaria had a better rate of 4% share than today, when it is only 2%. The situation doesn’t look much better on EU level by comparing the 9% share of EU27 average from 2004 with the 14% today. The fact that year after its accession in the EU, Bulgaria had 0% of share of enterprises' turnover on e‐ commerce proves that Bulgarian e‐commerce markets were still not there or very uncompetitive and the Bulgarian enterprises interest was more focused at the external products coming from other EU countries. Not so strangely according to the previous statistics Bulgaria is one of European countries with the least number of enterprises with fixed broadband. In 2011 it was 68% against the general EU27 average of 87%. And although Bulgaria today still lags behind, the fact is that since 2004, the majority of the businesses in the country have recognized the potential of fixed broadband. Of course, that doesn’t imply only e‐commerce related business, but all kind of occupational domains. Individuals using the Internet for ordering goods or services Back at 2004, a year before the accession to the EU, only 1% of the Bulgarians has been using Internet for ordering goods or services from within the country. In the meantime, every 2nd EU citizen (on average) was already active buyer on the web from his country. For the period of 7 years since then, this EU average reached the more than a double rate of 43%, taking into account the accession of 3 new country members in the Union. Bulgaria showed a visible growth reaching the current level of 7% of Internet buyers of national goods and services. Individuals using the Internet for ordering goods or services from other EU countries A more elaborate look in between the figures of 2008 up to 2010 show that the Bulgarian society was still not very much open to the other EU markets in their choice by web shopping. The 1% of e‐consumers from 2008 rose just up to the 2% of the Bulgarian population today, who chose to order goods or services from other EU countries. The situation, however, although looking a bit better on EU27 level,
didn’t show a big contrast in terms of B2C e‐development – the EU average 6% from 2008 reached 9% in its latest measurement. And although the growth didn’t seem much different, what was valuable to estimate is that almost every 1 out of 10 EU citizens were crossing their national borders to other EU countries while ordering online. This openness is something which a little number of Bulgarians possess when it comes to import goods and their delivery within national borders. Mobile phone subscriptions ‐ Per 100 inhabitants According to the World Bank data, in 2010 Bulgaria was still over the average of the EU27 with 140 subscriptions per 100 inhabitants. The mobile telecommunications in Bulgaria are among the most widely spread not only compared to European standards but also to the global stats. However, there is a strong market monopoly (52% of the market) in the mobile telecoms market, which was the same also around the accession of Bulgaria in the EU. Today Bulgaria has some of the lowest prices for local calls compared to the average for Europe, which is one of the good positive examples for the development of the information society in its economical definition. Following the historical developments of Internet in the country, it became clear that the big competition between the fix telephone networks company and the new mobile networks operators (the later becoming acquirer of the first) was the reason for the drop‐off of costs for stationary lines, both for households and for enterprises. The reason? In order to increase the interest towards their mobile packages or new 3 in 1 offers, they decreased the prices of stationary lines, which anyway became less attractive and used in the course of time. As of today, taking into account the emergence of mashed‐up ICT services and products, the country faces a bright perspective and opportunity to be among the early adopters of new generation innovations in the coming years. The EC invited the EU member states by 2020 to double the annual total public spending on research and technological development in ICT of 5.5 billion EUR per 11 billion EUR (including funds under the EC Framework Programmes) and to engage in large‐scale projects in areas of public interest. However, the major problems in Bulgaria are not the lack technological ICT development but its insufficient and imbalanced coverage over the country, knowledge transfer to all citizens about ICT potential for the development of the society and adequate example for innovation adoption from the public institutions. I can only hope that the government would be able to support this process by developing an accurate National Program "Digital Bulgaria 2015", which would reflect on the mentioned areas. References ‐ Eurostat ‐ DataMarket ‐ META ‐ A Network of Excellence forging the Multilingual Europe Technology Alliance Ministry of Transport Information Technology and Communications of Bulgaria ‐ Manuel Castells ‐ Frank Webster ‐ EC publications